Bologna Football Club closed in on Mihajlo Ilic, the young Serbian defender from Partizan Belgrade, for 4.5 million euros, plus a one million euro bonus. This followed after a series of video calls to finalize the deal.
The club is also looking to finalise the remaining three transfers they have been working on for the past month. Among them are, Santiago Castro from Velez Sarsfield, an Argentinian forward born in 2004, Talles Magno from New York City, a Brazilian striker born in 2002, and Kelvin Amian from Spezia, a 25-year-old French defender.
Bologna’s sporting director, Giovanni Sartori, and head of the youth sector, Marco Di Vaio, have been making concerted efforts to wrap up at least one of these transfers by Sunday. However, handling international transfers requires a significant degree of caution, especially for the buying party, posing a considerable challenge.
Thus, there is a growing belief within Casteldebole, Bologna’s training complex, that these deals will slide into next week, post the Cagliari match.
If indeed this timeline were to pan out, it would suit head coach, Thiago Motta. Having a full two weeks to train with these new additions would be extremely beneficial for him. This is because, due to Fiorentina’s commitment in the Supercup, Bologna will miss a match day next Sunday and will only return on January 27 against Milan at San Siro.